Cultural depictions of the Salem witch trials

Fanciful representation of the Salem witch trials, lithograph from 1892.

Cultural depictions of the Salem witch trials abound in art, literature and popular media in the United States, from the early 19th century to the present day. The literature and some televisual depictions are discussed in Marion Gibson's Witchcraft Myths in American Culture (New York: Routledge, 2007) and see also Bernard Rosenthal's Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

"The Devil in Boston" (1948, premiered 1953 in Los Angeles), translated by June Barrows Mussey from the original German "Wahn oder Der Teufel in Boston" (1948, premiered 1949 in Frankfurt a. M.), a play by Lion Feuchtwanger (1884–1958), a German-Jewish writer in exile in the US. Main characters are the Puritan minister and theologian Cotton Mather (1663–1728) and Hanna Parrish, Feuchtwanger's adaptation of Elizabeth Parris. Close to the historical events. Depicts the dynamics of the witch hunt and the interests of the Mathers. A fictional character, Mather's brother-in-law Robert Colman, represents Enlightenment thought.

The Secret Circle Trilogy (1992) is a young adult book series by L.J. Smith, which takes place in New Salem. The series focuses on Cassie Blake, a 16 girl who is drawn to a group of high school teenagers who are witches and are hunted by witch hunters.

Acceptable Risk (1995), an adult medical thriller novel by Robin Cook (1940-living), with a plot that attributes the afflictions in Salem to an unusual mold that is rediscovered by present-day medical researchers.

Time of the Witches (2009) by Ann Meyers is a story that describes a fictional character, Drucilla, as she grows up during the witch trials. Many real people, including Tituba, make appearances.

Supernatural: One Year Gone (2011) by Rebecca Dessertine is a story based on the TV show Supernatural in which Dean Winchester travels to Salem and discovers a journal by one of his ancestors from the time of the Witch Trials that reveals all the women hanged were innocent and that the real witches instigated the trials as a cover for their evil activities. At the end of the story, while fighting the witches, Dean summons the ghosts of all those killed in the Trials and they kill the two evil witches responsible for their deaths.

Hocus Pocus (1993), a Disney film comedy, starring Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy as three sisters who were hanged as witches in colonial Salem, and who return to life in twentieth century Salem to wreak comic havoc. (Parker would later discover, as documented in the NBC program Who Do You Think You Are?, her 10th great-grandmother, Esther Elwell, was arrested during November 1692 for witchcraft, but fortunately the trials ended and she was never tried.)

Keeper of Souls (2004), a horror film set in a fictional Southern town called Grove Hill, connects the demon to the Salem Witch Trials.

The Covenant (2006), a horror film that takes place in Ipswich, Massachusetts, which ties the supernatural powers of the present-day characters to their colonial ancestors, who had been charged with witchcraft during the Salem witch trials.

An early episode of the CBS radio program You Are There dramatized key events of the Witch Trials (1947).

The television series Bewitched (1964–1972) includes six episodes in Season 7 (1970) that were filmed on location in Salem, with a plot that includes time travel to 1692. On June 15, 2005, the TV Land Network erected a bronze statue in Salem of Elizabeth Montgomery as the lead character, Samantha. TV Land spent $75,000 to install the sculpture in Salem's Lappin Park. It was sculpted by StudioEIS under the direction of brothers Elliott and Ivan Schwartz.[1]

In episode four, "Agents of Satan" (which first aired on October 31, 1982), of the science-fiction TV show Voyagers!, the main characters, Bogg and Jeff, help save Abiah Folger, the mother of Benjamin Franklin, from being burned at the stake during the Salem witch trials.

Episode 348 of Season 19 of the sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live (first aired October 2, 1993) contained a skit depicting the "Salem Bitch Trials" in which Abigail Wolcott, played by Shannen Doherty (who played Betty Parris in the aforementioned Voyagers! episode and the witch Prue Halliwell in the TV series Charmed, see below), is examined by Deputy Governor Danforth, played by Phil Hartman, on charges of "bitchcraft," with testimony given that she had told a woman her dress made her hips look big and snubbed a man's desire to court her because his surrey was not sufficiently fast, adorned or stylish. The sketch ends stating that she and 19 other women were burned at the stake.[2]

In the television series Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996–2000), in Season 1, Episode 23 (1997), "The Crucible," a class field trip goes to Salem to re-enact the trials. The witch cat, Salem Saberhagen was named after the Salem Witch Trials.

In Charmed, a television series (1998–2006), part of the fictional background is that Melinda Warren, an ancestor of the three fictional protagonists, was burned at the stake in the Salem witch trials, having been betrayed by her lover. See Season 1, Episode 9, "The Witch Is Back" (1998) and Season 3, Episode 4, "All Halliwell's Eve" (2000) In Season 2, Episode 2, Phoebe is caught using witchcraft to commit a crime in the future.

Ghost Hunters, Season 3, Episode 17: "Salem Witch", originally aired October 24, 2007, explores the haunting of the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, Massachusetts, by the spirit of Bridget Bishop, one of the people executed in 1692.

In Bones season 5, episode 20: 'The Witch in the Wardrobe' references to the occult and the Salem Witch Trials for the basis for the plot. Doctor Lance Sweets is also shown to be a revered expert in this field of study.

Aidan from Being Human on the Syfy channel has an encounter with a witch. Aidan: "Let me guess, Salem?" Ms. Gilchrist: "Andover. But Salem got all the press."

In the television series The Secret Circle, which aired on The CW between 2011 and 2012, the ancestors of the main characters and the witch families in Chance Harbor, are all descendants of six out of the eighteen witch families that escaped from Salem in 1692.

The third season of the series American Horror Story: Coven (2013) primarily follows the antics and events of a coven of Salem descendants who reside within a boarding school, Miss Robichaux's Academy, centered in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Salem is an American historical fiction drama television series created by Adam Simon and Brannon Braga airing on WGN America beginning April 20, 2014 and is the first original-scripted series by WGN America. The series, which stars Janet Montgomery and Shane West, purports to be based on the real Salem witch trials in the 17th century, with one "twist": the witches were real and in charge of the trials.

Issue No. 18 in September 1962 of Unknown Worlds, from American Comics Group, contained an 11-page story called "Witch Hunter of Salem", depicted on the cover, in which the minister who was hunting witches in Salem turned out to be one. Zev Zimmer (Script), C. C. Beck (Pencils), Pete Costanza (Inks); Cover by Ogden Whitney.

Marvel Team-Up in 1976, included a 4-part serialized story-line (Issues Nos. 41–44) in which Spider-Man, Vision and the Scarlet Witch travel through time to Salem, 1692, to battle an nemesis, Dr. Doom —- who has enlisted the help of Cotton Mather – get entangled in the witchcraft accusations. Pages 11–16 in particular in issue No. 42, "Visions of Hate!," depict the historical episode.

Salem: Queen of Thorns is a 5-issue comic (Nos. 0–4), the first issue published in 2006 and the rest in 2008 by Boom! The entire series was later compiled into a single volume: Salem: Queen of Thorns in February 2009 (ISBN 1-934506-46-X).

Rob Zombie's album Educated Horses (2006) contains many references to the trials, mainly in the song American Witch. His song, entitled Lords of Salem, also was based on this.

Jello Biafra had a side-project entitled The Witch Trials, and his work with the Dead Kennedys made a few references to them.

Canadian progressive rock band Rush's song "Witch Hunt" (from 1981's Moving Pictures) is about how manipulators can use fear to "possess" the "ignorant" masses to their liking, much like the Salem townspeople during the Witch Hunts.

Daniel Low, a jeweler in Salem, Massachusetts, began selling souvenir sterling "Witch" spoons in 1890, using two different patterns, the first with three pins, the word "Salem", and a witch on a broom. (See right)

The story of Salem featured prominently in many publications in the 19th century about the 17th century colonial foundations of the United States. The illustrations continue to be reproduced widely in 20th and 21st century publications, in many cases without accurate attribution or reference to the century in which the illustrations were created. This gallery includes their citations and the names, where known, of the artists who created them. Check the Wikimedia Commons for more that may not be included here.

Jonathan Corwin's House, Essex St., Salem, MA; "A View of the house of the late Hon'ble Jonathan Corwin (Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusets [sic] and member of the council appointed in the new charter, May 1692). Erected 1642, by Cap't. Geo. Corwin", circa 1859, Library of Congress, Ira J. Patch, Salem, Mass. This building, as the "Old Witch House", is open to the public, and is the only building left standing in Salem with ties to the witch trials.

Martha Corey, illustration by John W. Ehninger, to accompany the play "Giles Corey of the Salem Farms" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Boston, Houghton, 1902

Tituba, illustration by John W. Ehninger, to accompany the play "Giles Corey of the Salem Farms" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Boston, Houghton, 1902

Tituba and Mary Walcott, illustration by John W. Ehninger, to accompany the play "Giles Corey of the Salem Farms" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Boston, Houghton, 1902

"The Legend of Salem: The Rev. George Burroughs was accused of witchcraft on the evidence of feats of strength, tried, hung and buried beneath the gallows," Illustration for "Some Legends of the New England Coast," Part III, by Harriet Prescott Spofford, Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper, v. 31, (1871 Feb. 4), p. 345.

"The sheriff brought the witch up the broad aisle, her chains clanking as she stepped." Rebecca Nurse, as depicted by artist F.A. Carter in the historical novel, The Witch of Salem, or Credulity Run Mad, by John R. Musick. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1893. p. 275.

"She stood up serene but heroic", frontispiece, by Howard Pyle of fictional character accused of witchcraft, Dulcibel Burton, in Dulcibel: A tale of old Salem by Henry Peterson, Philadelphia: John C. Winston, 1907

"'The Lord knows that I haven't hurt them'", p. 68, illustration by Howard Pyle of Rebecca Nurse in Dulcibel: A tale of old Salem by Henry Peterson, Philadelphia: John C. Winston, 1907

"Marched from jail for the last time", p. 208, illustration by Howard Pyle of fictional character accused of witchcraft, Dulcibel Burton, in Dulcibel: A tale of old Salem by Henry Peterson, Philadelphia: John C. Winston, 1907

19th and 20th century photographs of 17th century buildings related to the episode[edit]

Although a few of the houses that belonged to the participants in the Salem witch trials are still standing, many of these buildings have been lost. This gallery includes photographs take in the 19th century and early 20th century that preserve the visual record of these homes.